


The Old Sins Job

by Mizzy



Category: Leverage
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie/Nate. An old colleague of Nate's is in need of assistance, but will the past interfere?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Sins Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstridV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridV/gifts).



> For astridv for help_japan. :)

There was a saying Sophie's father told her once. It stuck in her head because in her childhood he never said very much to her and in her adulthood even less. 

It was on her seventh birthday. Mama had been tired all day and should have been resting under the dappled shade of the trees and not out in the too bright sun, but Father hadn't let her. 

Sophie had demanded to know why. Father had looked at her in that sideways manner he did when he was tugging in emotions too tight, not wanting them to spill on his face, and he said she had all the shade she needed, because "Old sins cast long shadows."

Sophie hadn't known what that had meant until later, and then she wished she hadn't. She kept her family's secrets closer than she had kept any object in her life, but that wasn't a surprise to anyone who knew her—thieves only become great thieves if they don't have anything they needed to hold onto, and Sophie was a great thief.

She didn't know exactly why this phrase had come into her head so suddenly and so adamantly, but there it was, spinning in the back of her mind like an itch. A lot of things since San Lorenzo had been like that. Fragments of memories and feelings that she was too tied up in. "You think too much" had been the insult she had flung at Nate two years ago during the First David con, but she had only been able to use it so passionately because really, it applied better to her. Her thoughts trapped her, bound her to certain decisions, and one of those decisions was to keep calm and carry on, like everything was normal. Like she didn't  _want_  something deep in her skin, something she couldn't think of a way to keep.

That decision led her to where she was now, idly tracing the edge of a smooth glass tumbler with the pad of her finger, listening to Eliot while they waited for the client to come in. Eliot wasn't exactly the best conversationalist at times, and this was one of those times, but his silence was comforting. It was predictable and strong and something Sophie could mentally hold onto, so she didn't obsess over the one thing she  _wanted_  to obsess over.

It was her fault. It really was her fault. She had her chance with Nate, a hundred different times, and if she wasn't so proud maybe each of those hundred times could have become something amazing, instead of fractured, broken moments which left them both aching and hurting, and now- Sophie felt sick in the pit of her stomach, nauseous and disjointed. It was his right to move on and find someone else, god knows Sophie had flung that idea at him with gusto in their sole heated and low pitched argument about that night in San Lorenzo, and she had no right to be feeling the way she felt now. None at all.

 _(Except seeing him there on the step of her apartment made the world spin away and heat boil her spine. The mystery woman, with her spill of ink black hair over Nate's suited shoulder as she hugged him goodbye; perfect, porclain hands locked behind him, ruffling through the soft curls at the base of Nate's neck.)_

Eliot coughed. From the rough edge of it, she guessed it wasn't his first cough to get her attention. She glanced at him, eyebrows raised as if to pointedly say  _yes?_ , and he looked at her sympathetically, as if he knew what she was thinking about. She had received too many of those glances from the team over the last 24 hours, because all four of them had been there, worried about Nate's odd behaviour, and naturally stalking him to find out the answer of why he was disappearing all the time was their unified first thought after Hardison's web search had come up zero.

They looked at her like she had the right to care that Nate was emotionally involved with someone who wasn't her. She didn't. She really didn't.

 _Sophie Devereaux, in denial. How very out of character_ , a voice somewhere inside her said. Sophie ignored it, which was the only recourse when your inner conscience was that sarcastic. Her inner conscience was also in Nate's voice, so getting it to shut up and fast was the best plan for all concerned.

"I think that's her," Eliot said, still in that soft voice as if she was made of eggshells, and Sophie straightened, taking a sip of her lemonade to quench the prickling dryness of her throat. "Ten o'clock."

Sophie glanced over the checks of Eliot's shirt to see a woman at the doorway. Sophie wanted, suddenly, for the woman to be Nate's mystery woman, to have  _answers_ , and it was an absurd and ridiculous daydream that was too ludicrous to come true. It didn't. The woman had red hair, pulled back in a frazzled bun, and she might have been pretty if she didn't look so exhausted. Sophie clocked the comfortable shoes, the bags around the eyes, and the displacement of weight around the waist and hips on the woman's slim body—she must have given birth in the last few weeks. 

Hardison had found their newest client on some forum on the Internet where new mother's congregated to whine and moan, and set the meeting up, but Nate had an "appointment" so asked Eliot and Sophie to take the initial meeting. Sophie had swallowed down the immediate question on where he was going, and nodded. 

When Nate left earlier, Hardison helpfully pointed out that the woman had worked for a department of IYS in New York until eight months ago, and before that had worked in Nate's branch there in Boston, so maybe it was better he wasn't there for the initial meeting. His emotions were rare, but when they came out they were brutal and left everyone breathless, and IYS was still one of the best triggers for that. It was best not to bother him if this contact didn't pan out.

Eliot turned and made a hand signal which the red-haired woman picked up. She headed over to their table briskly, eyes wide with nervousness, her pale hand tugging at her bun like she could magically neaten it up that way. Her name was Astrid Alexander. Sophie had read her profile eagerly when she saw the magic initials IYS, as if she could give her more information on how to solve the impossible puzzle they called Nathan Ford, but apart from a brief note in her précis to say she worked for his branch for fourteen years, there was little else. No clue as to whether she knew Nate in passing, or at all.

"Hello," Astrid said, her right foot turning underneath itself as she swayed awkwardly at the end of their booth. Eliot turned on his charm and slid along, letting her sit next to him, giving her plenty of space and an escape. She was blushing and sitting in her seat in moments.

Sophie smiled at her. Maybe it was a little too plastic as Astrid wasn't calming down, and that set Sophie on edge. She shook it away. Even though her success so far had depended on the first impressions people made of her, she wasn't going to make that mistake on someone else.

"My name's Sophie, this is Eliot," Sophie said, launching into the spiel, because it was better than thinking. "And you're Astrid."

"I am," Astrid said. "And you said you could maybe help me?"

"Why don't you tell us a little bit about your problem," Sophie said, "and we'll see what we can do for you."

Astrid outlined her problem, in low and stuttering tones, forming each word as if it might come and bite her in the ass afterwards. This was a woman damaged by what had happened to her. Sophie didn't need to listen to her words so much—that was why they rarely did these briefings on their own. She was the body language expert, the nuance of tone was her realm, and Astrid was broken up by what had happened. She obviously used to be confident, and skilled.

She had worked for IYS for the last twenty years. Six years ago she had transferred to the New York facility. Four years ago she was given a client—Whitcom—which was a company which had been for decades the only provider outside of Sillicon Valley of a type of computer chip Sophie had never heard of. The New York branch was pioneering an insurance and security scheme, and Astrid was designated Whitcom amongst the clients. The owner of the company, Stan Whitman, had an original Cezanne worth $15million. Astrid regularly checked up on it and vetted its security system personally.

Except six months ago, Whitcom had a competitor rise up—Brattcom—who made the same kind of computer chips. Whitcom struggled but was coming out on top, and then the painting was stolen. Astrid worked to retrieve it, brought it back, and had it in her house overnight because she suffered a bad bout of morning sickness that evening. 

That night, the painting was stolen from her house. Astrid informed IYS immediately, only to discover $5million had been put into her own bank account, as if she had stolen the painting herself.

The payment was frozen, but there was no way to prove Astrid had taken it as parts of her story checked out (her safe was smashed to pieces and her neighbours saw a suspicious van.) But it turned out that the $5million in Astrid's account had apparently come out of Whitcom's main account, so it looked like an inside job, like Whitman had paid Astrid to 'steal' the painting so they could share the insurance pay out.

Astrid lost her job—IYS fired her immediately even though she was weeks from giving birth. And even though the federal case was dropped due to lack of sufficient evidence, Whitman's reputation was mud and his company went bust within the month. She had done all she could up to this point to try and find out who stole the painting, both originally and then from her, but she was stuck. She needed proof that it was Brady Bratt from Brattcom that had engineered the whole thing to bring his competitor down, but all she had was a bad feeling and a broken safe. She didn't know who to turn to, and then she had an e-mail from Mr. Hardison, so here she was.

"I definitely think it's something we can look into," Sophie said, her hands on Astrid's, the small woman in tears over her lost job and IYS's lack of trust in her, even after the number of years she had worked there. "I just have to run it past our..." She searched for the word, and it escaped her.  _Mastermind_  wasn't entirely reassuring, after all; at least, not to civilians. Then all words escaped her as Nate pushed through the door, making a beeline straight for the bar, and signalling up a drink. Her heart sank a little, and then she remembered the client, and she turned her gaze back, a little flustered—her default reaction around Nate after their post-San Lorenzo blaze ups.

"Our number one," Eliot interjected, flashing a disarming smile at her. Astrid smiled back at him, her eyes suspiciously watery, but she blinked the tears away.

"I would get to meet your... number one, right?" Astrid said. "If you took on my case. I want to thank you all in person." She paused, her thin lips pursing together. "I want to  _see_  this guy taken down."

"I'll see what we can do," Sophie said vaguely, looking over at Nate. He looked up after a moment, feeling her eyes on him, and she made a small gesture under the table where Astrid couldn't see.  _New client. Come check her out_.

Nate's face was impassive as he stood up from the stool, and Sophie tried not to cheer out loud when his hand moved away from his drink on the bar in front of him. He stepped forward as if to acquiesce to her gesture for help, and then he caught sight of the client, and he  _changed_.

It was nothing perceptible to most people. If Sophie didn't know him so well she wouldn't have even noticed. But she knew him, had seen him in all sorts of situations, and she had only seen those dark clouds cross his face three times before. Twice had been with Maggie, when he had to tell her two secrets he didn't want to—about his own new criminal career, and of Blackpoole's hand behind Sam's death. Third had been when telling James Sterling that yes, they had a deal.

Her eyes locked with Nate across the room, as always with that challenging note that  _hurt_ , and then his eyes softened, and he looked almost- Sophie struggled for the word. Anguished? Was that it? He shook his head, and stalked quickly away, heading for the back room. Sophie turned back to Astrid, who looked a bit puzzled, and Eliot, who looked stern, like he was going to smack Nate in the face for not being polite to a female client and coming over to say hello.

Sophie looked at Astrid seriously. "I'll see what we can do," she repeated, patted her on the hand, and got up to follow Nate out of the bar, leaving Eliot to deal with her abrupt departure.

She didn't know exactly what she was going to say to Nate, but she knew she needed to go to him. All right, maybe part of that urge was her own curiosity. Still, it was odd behaviour from him, and coupled with his disappearances every now and again, Sophie felt she and the team had every right to learn some—at least—of what he was hiding.

He was sitting at the dining table when she entered the apartment. He had his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the glass table, casting a dark shadow over the normally light surface. As soon as her feet hid the wooden floor he let out a cracked exhale, like he knew who it was coming through the door.

Of course he did. He was Nate Ford. If he wasn't two steps ahead of everything and everyone, something was wrong with him. Something worse than usual, anyway.

"You going to explain why you gave our potential new client the wide berth?" Sophie didn't bother with niceties like hello and how are you. She liked to pretend it was because they were all past the point of necessary phatics, but mainly they didn't bother with empty words because they were all kind of  _to the point_  people. Except when they were trying to avoid particular points; then all of them could beat around the bush like masters.

His shoulders tensed, the material of his woollen coat stretching across his back slightly, and then sagging as he relaxed. He looked up at her, his hair dishevelled, like he had spent the two minutes head start away from Sophie just rumpling his hair in disbelief. Knowing Nate, it was a likely deduction. The rims of his eyes looked a little red, but Sophie would never raise the subject of tears. One day he would repay the favor.

"Astrid's been fired," Sophie said, "due to one company framing another and letting her take the blame."

Nate's eyes were steady, but one of his hands was not as he fished into his pocket and pulled out a couple of headache tablets, dry swallowing them before she could lecture him on combining alcohol and medication. Sophie let herself be in denial about that, even though he was probably stinking drunk already to be that shaky. He looked at her blankly for a moment, before literally shaking his head for a moment, and his eyes focussed. "I worked with Astrid for fourteen years," Nate said, and took a deep, shuddering breath in, and Sophie definitely recognised the sudden tight expression, (pain, pure pain) and she opened her mouth to tell him it wasn't needed, it was okay.

But in turn, he obviously recognised what  _she_  was about to do, and he spoke quickly and firmly, like he always did when trying to derail something she was about to say.

"Astrid left two years before Sam died," Nate said, the words almost joining together in his rush to say them. "She-" He took another of those shuddery inhalations, and Sophie caught a rumble in it, like Nate was in pain from it. "I-" He looked down at his hands, then at his trembling left hand, like it was a traitor.

"You don't have to tell me a thing," Sophie said. "I can tell her the case isn't in our remit. If this is too difficult for you, we're not doing it."  _Doing what_  is what the logical part of her brain is demanding, because nothing has been fully decided, but it's mostly denial that forces that response. She doesn't want to think she's soft enough to fall for a sob story without fully checking it out, and Astrid's story had hit a painful note in her chest.  _Pregnant and terrified, and fired_ , _and probably with the threat of imprisonment binding that all together_.

Sophie pushed that empathy to one side. Nate needed her attention. He was her focus now, even though his focus was on his hands at the moment.

"She worked with Sterling and I," Nate said, struggling through the words. "We were her mentors. I taught her everything she knows. She's the most honest person on the planet, Sophie." His voice cracked on the last sentence.

"You're ashamed." Sophie spoke the words as soon as she realised them, and the hurt of them was instantaneous, because if Nate was ashamed of himself, he was ashamed of all of them. 

"Only of myself," Nate said, in that deeply disturbing way he had of knowing  _exactly_  what she was thinking. He looked up from his hands to look at her, and his expression was deadly serious. "I mean that. There isn't a second on Earth I'm ashamed of you." His face froze a little, like he had said something wrong. "Any of you," he amended, and his face settled, as if that fixed whatever he thought he had broken. "Besides," he said, moving on swiftly, "I just-"

"Relive Sam's death every time you have to say it," Sophie said, sounding the words out slowly as she thought it through. Nate's head sagged just a bit, and she knew she was right. "It's okay. We can let Astrid know we can't-"

"No." Nate's voice was rough and determined. "No, she needs help. She wouldn't be here unless she  _really_  needed help. I'm a grown man, I can suck it up and-"

"No," Sophie said, surprising herself with the stubbornness of her own tone, "no, we can help her and keep you on the sideline. She won't have to know you're helping. Not if you can't handle it. We're a team. And sometimes one of us has to take a back seat role; that doesn't make us  _not_  a team anymore."

He looked torn, like he expected of himself that he should talk her out of it, but the idea of having to tell Astrid about Sam was enough to make him reluctant, to hold him back. After a long, long pause, he nodded, and slowly, slowly exhaled. That was all the emotion he allowed himself to show. He pushed his chair back and relaxed his posture. "So what's the situation?"

Sophie grinned, the fire of a new con catching in her belly immediately, and she began to outline what had happened to Astrid Alexander.

Hardison and Eliot joined them after a short while, Parker in tow, and Nate already had half a con planned up from what he found online while Sophie briefed him. Hardison took over the search, and Nate directed him to a few salient pieces of information, and Hardison queued it up to show on the big screen.

Nate did his thing, delivering the plan coolly and confidently, except for the odd worrying tremble of a hand which he hid by clenching a mug of super strong coffee Sophie made for him. The basic con idea he came up with in a long-for-him three minutes was simple and dramatically pleasing as a conclusion.

It couldn't be that easy. It wasn't.

The first snag was Bratt's building. It locked down at midnight and was impenetrable. They needed to adjust their plan just in case Bratt didn't work with their timings, but Parker said she had a vague idea for it.

Hardison then hit something bigger in his search. Something which, for some reason, made Parker start clapping her hands delightedly and jump up and down on the couch, and Eliot's face turn the colour of thunder. Hardison looked impressed for a second, and Sophie looked bewildered.

"I thought Higgs-Boson was some sort of physics thing," Sophie said.

"It is, the God particle," Hardison said. "But it's also the nickname of a safe brought out last year, the HB safe. Two Indian kids came up with it. It's based on a ton of laws of physics."

"I've always wanted to be the first to break one of those," Parker said. "Oh please, oh please, oh  _please_  let us do this con." She was bouncing on the end of the couch now, sat down and eyes gleaming, hands clasped together.

"The first?" Sophie blinked. They already were looking her direction; she had set precedence with lack of safe knowledge when they stole Parker. "How can a safe be unbreakable?" was her second question, because in their world, the concept was quite ludicrous.

"It hasn't been done," Hardison said. "Doesn't mean it can't be."

"It's got like, four doors, and pressure sensors, and a heuristic algorithm that could beat a Steranko  _hands down_ , with tumble locks and DNA and voice recognition and fingerprints and retina scans and rotating passwords and a harmonic lock and gravity pads and movement sensors and heat, and  _saliva_ detectors for when you breathe out," Parker breathed, like it was a prayer. "No one's ever broken into one before. I'm going to be the first."

"Can you do it?" Nate said, his voice tight.

Parker outlined her plan.

Even Hardison sounded impressed. 

"How did you think of something to break a HB safe in just two minutes since the concept was brought up?" Eliot demanded.

Hardison interrupted with, "Some people do crosswords." Parker grinned.

"Guess that ties in better with the plan," Nate said. He clapped his hands and they all turned to him. "Eliot, I need you to deliver his current PA to their new working address. Use the printouts coming now to suggest strongly to her that her money skimming has been noticed, and Bratt will chase after her if she tries it again at her new job. Hardison, how fast can you make me a sculpture about  _this_  high-" Nate gestured above his head "-and I suppose we'd better have removable weights in the bottom for transportation so it's not a pain in Lucille's ass?"

"Gimme a day," Hardison said, pulling up another website on the screen—a proxy site so he could start ordering the materials he needed. "I'll fake you a Edward Onslow Ford in no time."

Nate gave Hardison a look, but was overpowered by the matching grins from the other three. "As long as it's big enough for what we need," he said.

"Gotcha."

"Sophie, you'll be Bratt's new PA. Bratt's got too many departments. I doubt he communicates properly with them all," Nate said, looking across at Sophie.

"The Demcon scam," Sophie said with a grin. Hardison squinted at her dubiously. She turned her pleased grin to him. "It's one I pulled right in front of Nate's nose about six years ago. Some big companies have departments—Demcon in my case—that don't communicate with each other. I had an office in their biggest building and it took them a year before they realized that first, I was rarely there, and second that I probably didn't even have a  _right_  to be there. Bratt should assume his personnel department has arranged the interviews autonomously; they'll assume he's arranged it. If we rope in a couple of extra candidates for interview, I can flake them out beforehand."

"Parker, I'm going to need you to pretend to be a PA too," Nate said. Parker's face fell as she realised it meant putting on a fake persona. "It's not for long. We're going to get you outed to Bratt as a thief."

"How you going to do that?" Eliot asked. "Personally?"

Nate shook his head. "No. As I think you've gathered, I used to work with Ms. Alexander. She's hands-on, more than me, she always enjoyed that part of chasing you. Believe me, she'll want to be front and centre and I think she can handle it. _She'll_  be outing Parker as a thief."

"Then what are you going to be doing?" Parker said, accepting Nate's plan without the explanation it really required.

"We're going to run a Big Store con," Sophie interrupted on his behalf, "but  _really_  big. There's a lot of behind the scene work necessary which Nate's agreed to take on. Hardison will be the boss of our new fake company, Hardcorp."

"Excellent," Hardison said with a grin, drawing out the middle syllable in glee. "I always knew I'd be a boss of a rising company before the age of 30."

"Well, you guys know what you need to do. Sophie, call Astrid back up to here, brief her on the plan, run her through the steps. She has a flair for the dramatic—use it." Nate got to his feet and swung his coat on, starting to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Eliot said, faking a casual tone, except the others betrayed his forced casualness by turning and watching, waiting for the answer.

Nate shrugged, and turned his head as he headed towards the door. "I'm going to go steal us a multi-million dollar business."

\- - - -

After Hardison checked, checked and triple checked her to make sure she was on the straight and narrow and Sterling wasn't using her to yank their chain, they let Astrid Alexander into the apartment and into the plan.

She nodded determinedly through the whole briefing.

"I want to do this," Astrid said. "And I can. I've done it before to you, I think, actually." She had turned to Hardison before saying that. He jerked his head in surprise, and then squinted at her for a long moment.

"Detroit?" he said, eventually.

"Hardison," Sophie said, in a soft hissed warning. "What-"

"Nah, it's cool, man, it was while she was with IYS. I was  _sixteen_ , I thought it was cool to steal some props from the MGM vault, Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, the Wrath of Khan's ear slug thing, y'know." Hardison shrugged at his laptop screen. "This redhead came out of  _nowhere_ , man, I barely got out of there."

"That was you?"

Sophie and Parker stared at each other awkwardly for a beat before realising Sophie had directed the question to Astrid, and Parker had directed an  _impressed_  version of the question to Hardison.

"Yes it was," Hardison said for the both of them. "You didn't get me in Orlando, though, so I'm cool with you."

"Orlando was  _you_? I thought it was  _you_ ," Astrid said, nodding at Eliot. Eliot snickered. 

"Nah, I think I saw you with Sterling once in Scotland," Eliot said. Astrid blinked, stunned. "Good times," Eliot added. Astrid looked blank.

"If you've chased them, you have to have chased me," Parker insisted.

"Vancouver, California and Germany," Astrid said, nodding. "Didn't catch you once. No one ever does. Your rep is insane."

Parker grinned. "The third time it was because I filled their car with cheese whiz."

"I thought it was you," Astrid said, repressing a giggle, but the memory seemed to make her finally relax in their presence. "Nate—sorry, Nathan Ford, a guy I used to work with, good guy—was angry for  _weeks_."

"He does not like cheese whiz," Parker said. Sophie shot her a look, and Parker backpedalled. Badly. "Uh, so I realised after spraying the car full of it and the uh, shouting that came from the vehicle afterwards. I don't know him well enough to know his preferences on cheese whiz otherwise. Why would I?"

Eliot whistled through his teeth, Hardison looked like he wanted to put his head in his laptop and close the lid down hard, and Sophie's smile stretched to show her molars—a definitely tell that she was lying, or about to.

"You were still hanging around?" Astrid was shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm going to ring Ford up after this and tell him. It's been a while, but I'm sure he would laugh at it."

"Sure," Sophie said, in as level a tone as she could manage. "So you haven't seen him or any of your IYS buddies since this all happened?"

"No," Astrid said, a stiff but sad note in her tone. Her eyes fixed on a blank location on the wall. "I was working for a different branch anyway, they wouldn't know. I lost touch with them all just- Well- I  _had_  to." Her gaze dropped to her interlinked hands on her knees. "It was for the best, I guess."

"Why did you leave? I mean, it's possible you were set up that far in advance, it happens," Sophie said, "so maybe your move was engineered by an outside party we should know about before kicking this whole thing off?"

Astrid shook her head. "I don't need revenge for the reason I moved. I-" She looked at them all. "You've already been so kind to me, when for most of my life I've been wretched to you all. I don't know how you can even stand to help me, let alone listen to me whine on-"

"Lady," Eliot said, "it's what we do."

"It's better to have too much information going into something than not enough," Hardison agreed.

"Well, I don't think it will affect this job," Astrid said, chewing on her bottom lip for a moment. "My colleague—Ford, actually, funny how I keep thinking of him today—well, his wife thought he cheated on her. He was stubborn, real stubborn, I don't know if you can understand just how stubborn one man can be." She smiled at the memory ruefully.

"You'd be surprised," Sophie said, sotto voce.

If Astrid heard her, she didn't respond to it. "Well, I guess she thought it was me, because she got real frosty, kicked him out a while, I took him in. He never told me if he did cheat or not." She shrugged. "I didn't think he had."

"He doesn't sound the type," Sophie said, as evenly as she could manage considering the flush wanting to creep up the back of her neck. The idea of Nate cheating on Maggie with someone was disarming.  _Be honest. The idea of Nate cheating on Maggie with anyone but_ you _is what's disarming you_. Sophie shook the unpleasantly truthful thought away, and she squinted at Astrid. "What size are you?"

"Excuse me?" 

"We're going in tomorrow. You're going to need to look the part." Sophie grinned. "I'm going to guess you were 4, pre-pregnancy? Come on. I've got some clothes in N-" She stopped just in time, but carried on smoothly, even though when she wasn't putting a personality on she wasn't a terribly great liar. "In the back," Sophie amended. "Come on up."

Astrid nodded, and followed behind Sophie. Sophie took the opportunity to pull a face at how close she had been to dropping Nate in it. Eliot just smirked up at her. Astrid paused at the base of the staircase, her eyes alighting on Hardison's painting of Nate as Harland Leverage III. "You know," Astrid said, with a laugh in her tone like she couldn't believe she was saying it, "your painting looks an awful lot like-"

"Come on," Sophie said abruptly, turning on the staircases and gesturing at Hardison over Astrid's head to take it  _down_ , "we haven't got all day. Everything's already in place. The clock is ticking."

"Yes, of course." Astrid turned and followed Sophie up the stairs, little noticing the sigh of collected relief that followed her departure.

Sophie headed for the spare supplies she kept in Nate's closet, trying not to show she was a little thrown when she opened the sliding door. Not that it wasn't still laid out how she was expecting—the smell of him rushed out like a wave, and she inhaled it deep, and her lungs burned for a moment with it. She steadied herself and turned to Astrid with a stretched wide smile. She didn't want Astrid up here any longer than she had to be, in case Nate had left anything personal lying around.

"This one," Sophie said, pushing a skirt suit at Astrid. Astrid looked at it doubtfully, then at Sophie's legs, then down at her own. "Believe me, you'll be fine with some high heels."

"High heels," Astrid said, taking the suit and letting Sophie quickly shepherd her over to Nate's small en suite shower room. She shut the door behind her. The rustling of material was audible through the thin door. "I haven't worn them since three months into my pregnancy. I got terribly swollen ankles."

"Where is your... girl? Boy?" Sophie asked, quickly glancing over the room to check there was nothing terribly  _Nate_ around. She pushed a pair of his shoes under the bed, and bent down to pick up a discarded shirt. It smelled like him too, the cinnamon tang of deodorant he used mingling with the scent of the plain soap he preferred. Sophie held his shirt for a moment too long—Astrid opened the door too quickly. Sophie pushed the shirt behind her, aware she was blushing, but adamant she wouldn't explain to Astrid why.

Astrid was standing awkwardly—they would need to do some work there—but with some heels and a tighter bun, she was going to look  _fierce_ , and the idea of it was already starting to work its way into Astrid's expression. Sophie recognised that glaze of joy on her face—Nate's face had been like that, when it dawned on him what they could to Victor Dubenich, when it dawned on him the good they could do together.

"You'll do," Sophie said, with a satisfied nod.

Astrid grinned at the compliment in Sophie's voice. "My daughter's with my parents in Michigan. I thought it was best she was out of the way for this. No need to see her mother indulge in a little bit of criminal activity while she's still in her formative stage." Her indulgent, soft tone vanished a little as she added, seriously, "I need this sorted. I need my girl to grow up in a world where she can believe there's good guys around, even if they are... outlaws."

"We are a little bit Robin Hood," Sophie admitted, rolling her eyes at the cheesiness of the sentiment. "You seem not as... reluctant to deal with our methods as I would have expected. We did a job a year or so back with James Sterling-"

"Jim?" Astrid's voice pitched upwards in disbelief. "Jim 'I can't lose' Sterling, and he did a job with you? No offense," she swiftly added. 

"None taken," Sophie assured her.

"It was just... Jim would have gone down that route long ago, but Nate-" Astrid's smile got fond, and something in Sophie's stomach twinged - an ache of regret. Astrid turned back to the shower room, opening the door, and Sophie nodded. Astrid closed the door, and the clothing rustled as she changed back into her original clothing. Her voice was muffled, but she kept talking. "Nate always held us straight. We always, always operated within the law. Of course, Nate could find every loophole, but only if it was moral could we use it. Sterling adopted that like a  _tiger_. He always competed with Nate. I think Sterling thought the three of us were almost a crew, like you, but there's darkness in James Sterling—you've seen it too," Astrid added, as she came out of the small room, the suit neatly back on the hanger.

"Fast change," Sophie said, "you'd make an awesome Grifter."

Astrid grinned and Sophie, unable to help it, liked her in that moment, because the grin was so very genuine. Nate had said that about her earlier to Sophie, that it was impossible not to like Astrid, and Sophie had felt sort of resentful and unwilling to believe it, but it was true. Sophie was jealous—that instant likeability was golden to a Grifter, and Sophie didn't quite have it to Astrid's extent.

"Thanks. Anyway, we weren't a team. It was supposed to be Sterling and Ford mentoring me, but Ford seemed to be looking after both of us. I guess all I'm trying to get out is... I worked like you guys seem to, and it's going to be nice to have that feeling again." Astrid's voice turned a little wistful at the end, and she had such a kind tone and expression that Sophie suddenly just wanted to grab Nate, pull him into the room, let Astrid know the truth, because Astrid probably would take it well. But Nate wasn't quite strong enough yet to take it, and Sophie would do anything to prevent Nate from that pain if he wasn't ready. 

She probably would do anything even if he was.

"Let's go downstairs and practice how you're going to blow Bratt away, shall we?" Sophie walked out of the room before Astrid could say otherwise.

Downstairs, thankfully, the painting had gone. Parker whispered something about Hardison whining how heavy it was the whole time.

"Where's Eliot?" Sophie asked, as Astrid placed her bag and sweater on the counter and loosened up, ready for whatever practice Sophie was going to throw at her.

"Oh, he's gone help N- number one set up the Big Store," Parker said, dealing with her near slip a little better than Sophie had.

"That's the second time you've mentioned you have a... number one," Astrid said. "I presume he's your mastermind."

Parker and Sophie turned to her, two identical blank faces.

"Every crew, especially one as well organised as yours, has one," Astrid said. "I guess he's more of a behind the scenes guy."

"He's nervous around IYS," Sophie said. "That's as far as I can say."

"He doesn't trust me?" Astrid asked, looking a little downfallen.

"He doesn't trust himself," Sophie said, the truth stuttering out before she could really think about it.

Astrid nodded slowly, digesting that in her mind. "I guess I can understand that." She smiled a sad smile. "IYS used to stand for everything that was good and proper. But since they fired me... My whole life makes less sense than it ever did." She gestured at the blank wall where the painting was. "See, today I'm even hallucinating that you guys had a painting there that looked like my ex-mentor." Astrid gave a self-effacing shrug and placed her watch in her bag, swivelling her shoulders like she was limbering up for a run, not a con.

"That's really strange," Parker said, a little too brightly. Sophie gave her a warning look.

She crossed the floor and stared Astrid in the eye. Astrid flinched. Sophie sighed, and looked back at Parker. "We've got work to do."

—-

"Right, the old PA is stuck in Idaho, and Nate's booked a temp agency to send us some real applicants for her job. The original one, well-" Eliot said as he pushed through the main door. "She won't be coming back to bother u- what the  _hell_ is that?"

He stopped short on entering the sitting room area of the open space of the apartment, and stared at the sculpture that now occupied a ton of space. It was- it was- it was  _ugly_ , for want one of a better word.

"It's  _art_ ," Sophie said, sitting with her legs crossed elegantly, rocking the secretary look so well Eliot had to double take. She even wore glasses. They looked scarily like his. He decided not to ask.

"Fibreglass  _state_  of the art," Hardison said. "And lighter than an armful of textbooks. All we gotta do is load it up with some rocks on site, join the pieces together, it'll act like it's solid rock. As long as. You know. No one tries to lean on it or anything." He squinted. "Or touch it."

"Sounds completely perfect," Eliot deadpanned. Hardison started to grin, but his smile fell when he realised Eliot was trying to yank his chain.

"That was Nate," Parker said, dropping her cell phone into her pocket as she walked into the room, clad in the same sort of skirt suit as Sophie, but somehow looking entirely less elegant. "The place is set up. All we gotta do is put up the statue, set Hardison in place, we've got a business."

"Web site's up and running, so are the fake news sites," Hardison said. "I've also faked a copy of the newest Time magazine with Hardcorp on the front cover and an article inside. If you can make sure it gets into his intray-"

"-got it," Parker said, taking the magazine and sliding it up her shirt.

"Right," Sophie said. "Parker, we'll go pick up Astrid from her hotel room and go to Bratt's. Nate should have arranged the other interview candidates to arrive at eleven. Eliot, take Hardison to Brattcom's, there's a suit for you there."

Parker nodded and followed Sophie to the door.

"Do I really have to wear a suit?" Eliot eyeballed the fake sculpture, like it was to blame somehow. "Come on, Hardison—you're the one who keeps saying you've got  _guns_  in them arms, time to put them to work, let's get this ugly thing down there-"

There was no response. He turned. Eliot's face tightened. "Guys, we've got a problem."

Sophie and Parker turned in matching horror to see Hardison unconscious on the floor, lying on top of his laptop.

—-

"Right, let's see if Nate's plugged in yet," Sophie said, pushing her earpiece in, Hardison's head cushioned on her lap in the back of the car. Eliot was driving. Parker was a menace driving even when she  _wasn't_  going crazy; none of them wanted to risk it now when she was so clearly on the edge. "He usually connects early."

" _I heard that_."

"It wasn't an insult," Sophie said.

" _It is. I don't know how yet, but I'll figure it out_."

Sophie snorted, just loud enough for Nate to hear.

Eliot blinked, and then realised who Sophie was talking to. He pushed his own ear piece in as they hit a straight piece of road. "We need someone to take Hardison's place."

" _What's happened to Hardison?_ "

The soft indulgent tone he had been using to banter with Sophie dropped away to his harsh, all-business voice, the one he used when one of them was in trouble.

"Collapsed," Sophie said, trying to keep her voice even. "He's in a lot of pain right now."

Nate's response wasn't repeatable. Well, technically it was, but Sophie wouldn't have wanted to if she had to. Not because she'd heard worse, because she had, but because Nate never swore during a heist. Maybe at the beginning, if he had seen an obstacle far off in the distance that he didn't quite yet know how to surmount, but never in the middle. His swearing meant things could happen which he hadn't foreseen, and that was more unsettling than Hardison's face, contorted in pain.

"We're on our way to the hospital," Sophie said, unhappily. 

Nate did that sharp, through his teeth inhale that he used when he was repressing several more choice swear words. " _We can't slow this thing down,_ " he said, tight and low like it hurt to say. It did. " _Ask Eliot to stay with him. Then pick up Astrid and get her to the address I'm texting you now.“_

Sophie felt the rumble in her pocket from her cell. "But what are we-"

" _I've got it. Just get her here. And tell Hardison-_ "

Nate paused, too long.

"I will," Sophie said anyway. She looked up at Eliot in the reflection of the wing mirror. His worried eyes met hers. "Eliot, stay on course. You'll be staying with Hardison." Sophie's fingertips lingered on Hardison's clammy forehead and she looked down at his screwed up face. "Parker, we're going to pick up Astrid and keep on plan."

"But-"

"No buts. We're on a deadline, and Hardison would kill us if we deviated."

"No, I wouldn't," Hardison whimpered. Sophie twisted on his nearest ear. "Ah, ah, ahh, yes I would, I really would."

Parker frowned, but settled back into her seat. "Fine. Where are we going while Hardison's bleeding out of all his organs and dying while we're off cavorting around?"

"Don't say it like that, girl," Hardison managed. Sophie pinched at his ear again and smiled down at him with gritted teeth. Hardison at least stopped talking. The moaning, well, he couldn't help it. Even though it churned Sophie's stomach big time.

"Nate's found a workaround, he wants to meet Astrid at 10, before we get to Brattcom for 11 and pull this thing off." Sophie held in the sigh, but couldn't stop the tension from showing in her face, because it wasn't just Hardison she had to worry about. Nate's first reaction on seeing Astrid was to bury his nose in the nearest glass and hide. He was scared of telling Astrid the truth, and he was going to have to, and none of them handled his fallouts well.

Least of all him.

\- - -

It felt like losing a limb, leaving Hardison and Eliot behind, and going to a completely new address, all three pretty much dressed as secretaries, and having Astrid and Parker by her side, it all amounted to a very weird feeling in Sophie's body, like she was wearing something that didn't quite fit.

She shook that feeling side. If she couldn't adapt to cons any more she had no future as a Grifter. Sophie locked the van door and squinted up at the large white building. A Hardcorp sign was already attached above the door. Nate worked fast.

"Come on. Our mastermind's inside."

Parker flashed Sophie a smile behind Astrid's back. Astrid swallowed, smoothed down her borrowed jacket, and started towards the door.

Sophie took the lead, pushing open the main doors, the sound inside surprising her. She didn't know exactly how Nate had done it, but the place was already swarming with workers, and the machinery was buzzing. There was even someone on reception, who squinted at them, tapped on an intercom, and informed them that "Mr. Hardwick" was waiting in his office for them. Sophie followed the reception's gaze to a sign on the wall that already pointed "TO MR. HARDWICK'S OFFICE."

She should probably make Nate do the background work more often. She tried her best not to glee over the fact that if Nate was here working hard on making this place look awesome, he probably wasn't hanging out with his mystery woman.

Walking in heels on the white gridded walkway over the main workspace wasn't easy. Sophie had to support Astrid by the elbow a couple of times. Only Parker made it look like it wasn't anything difficult, which wasn't fair, considering Sophie could count the number of times Parker had worn heels over the last 3 years on one hand.

Then again, Parker was a master of movement.

They pushed through another few set of doors, climbed a set of stairs, down another couple of corridors, and up another staircase, still all immaculately signed (seriously, did Nate have OCD on top of all his other problems?) and Sophie found herself slowing as she recognised movement at the end of the last corridor they turned to.

It was Nate, there at the far end, leaning casually against the wall, dressed in a suit Sophie recognised from his IYS days. She didn't want to ask why he had it on hand to change into. It was probably Plan X or something, although the very idea of Nate planning for any of them being injured or ill made her stomach turn a little. She shook her thoughts to one side. Maybe it was even the suit she shot him in. A smile curved on her face, and she felt herself starting to speed up to meet him- but when she didn't see Astrid match her pace she faltered, and turned to glance at her.

Astrid's eyes were wide.

"Astrid?"

"We. We have to go," Astrid said, her voice raising in a strained panic. She started to back up, small, tiny steps. The movement of someone about to flee for their lives.

" _Now_!"Sophie's eyes flickered to the distance. Nate uncrossed his arms and straightened, and started to move as if coming towards them.

"We've got to go!" Astrid tugged at Sophie's arm, and started to run without her. Sophie and Parker exchanged a glance, and followed her. "This way! We need some distance!"

"What is it?" Sophie said, as Parker unsuccessfully muffled the grin she wanted to make. This was just Nate's style—testing Astrid to see what her reactions would be like. It made sense. It was nice to see how much Astrid trusted them, to turn them away from who she thought was an enemy.

"Don't you recognise him? That's Nathan Ford, the guy I used to work with. This way!" Astrid turned at a junction, and pushed through, heading back the way they came. Sophie and Parker followed silently, until Sophie was sure they were retracing their steps.

"Are we heading for the main door?"

"We are," Astrid said. "Nate would expect it."

"So we're going the way he's expecting us to go?" 

"Yes. Because he saw me. I know he did. See the way he straightened up and uncrossed his arms? That's him being slightly baffled. Come on!" Astrid led the way across the thin walkway in between machinery, some guys watching them, bemused rather than surprised.  _Nate must have warned them_ , Sophie thought with a grin. She hoped one day her mind might be as sharp as his to think about  _all_  possibilities in a con, because—as much as she hated to admit it—like Parker, before Nate came into their lives and into their cons, she missed things.

"So why aren't we going to, I don't know, a side door?" Parker said, as if they were just on a stroll, not running full pelt through the factory.

"Because that's what we should be doing. He knows I'd expect him to notice I'd notice him, and he'd expect me to know I'd know what he would expect us to do."

Sophie's brain wasn't functioning, or Astrid's logic was insane. She wasn't sure which. "Huh?"

"Look, the main door isn't obvious. Which is why he'd expect me to go for it. Because who in their right mind goes for the front door? But then he'd expect me to  _know_  I would expect him to think of going for the front door. So in a post-ironic way, I should go for the side door, the  _regular_  expected exit. But then he'd be expecting  _that_. So... the front door. He won't be expecting it."

"My head hurts," Parker said.

Astrid put on a burst of speed from who knew where, and Sophie and Parker matched it, even though they knew there was nothing to run from. Sophie gestured at Parker to let Astrid keep the lead, and they stayed behind her. As they ran past the startled receptionist and out into the daylight, Sophie blinked furiously to adjust to the sudden wash of natural light, and she heard clapping, and skidded to a halt just behind Astrid.

Nate was stood calmly in front of them, clapping his hands. As if he was mocking them. He'd got there ridiculously quickly.

"How-" Sophie blurted. Parker dug her in the side with two fingers and glanced pointedly back at the building. A trail of black rope carved the outside of the white building in half. Sophie relaxed. Nate knew Astrid, had trained Astrid, and apparently still knew how she thought.

"We are screwed," Astrid murmured under her breath, smiling tightly at Nate. "Thisis Nathan Ford.  _Nathan Ford_. I know you guys know what this means. IYS' biggest and brightest and we are  _screwed_."

"Ssshhhh," Sophie said, because it was probably the right thing to do in the circumstances.

Nate stopped clapping and look at Astrid amiably, almost blankly; those light blue eyes of his inscrutable against the glare of sunlight. "Nice company you're keeping these days, Alexander."

"I'm- I'm-" As Nate moved closer, Astrid took a deep breath and mirrored Sophie's expression, folding her arms and glaring at him. Her voice strengthened. "I'm working with the New York branch, covering some... special acquisitions by one of our clients," Astrid said. "They wanted me to go over some security details, so I hired some experts you might recognise."

"Like I would ever forget Sophie Devereaux," Nate replied smoothly, his eyes flickering over Sophie like... Sophie bristled. It was like they were back to where they were, and that insane dance they used to do.  _Still do,_  Sophie's brain interjected.  _You still do that same dance, only the steps are a thousand times more complicated_. It was almost predatory the way Nate looked at her. Like he owned her. Sophie shouldn't like that feeling, she really shouldn't. Her face warmed a little and she tilted her chin defiantly. "And Parker. I'm to believe you found Parker, and haven't gotten her arrested?" He tilted his head at Astrid. "Perhaps her insanity is catching?"

"I'm very contagious," Parker said seriously, baring her teeth and nodding.

"I'd agree with you there. Three years working with you and I still can't get rid of you." Nate grinned suddenly, and his entire posture changed, and suddenly he was Nate again, brisk businesslike Nate, not the shadow of his old IYS self. He stepped forward into Sophie's space, glancing at her directly. "How's Hardison?"

"Whining like a baby," Sophie said, rolling her eyes and turning towards the building. Nate and Parker matched her immediately. "He'll live," she allowed. "Eliot shook a doctor at the ER until he told him Hardison would 100% be fine."

"Great. I'm just going to show you where the party's going to be, where we're going to put the statue up, brief Astrid on her role a little..." Nate stopped still, about a metre away from entering the building, and he smiled, enigmatically.

Sophie and Parker paused with him, wearing identical frowns.

"Wha-" Parker started. Sophie put a finger to her lips. Nate mouthed, "Three... two... one..."

" _YOU_?"

"She gets a little vocal when she's upset," Nate said, not even bothering to lower his voice.

"You freaked me out! And you're-  _you're_  their freaking mastermind! No wonder they kept calling you N- N- number one!" Astrid stomped closer. Nate turned to stare at her, hands in his pockets and he shrugged. Then he glanced sidelong at Sophie.

"N-N- number one?"

Sophie shrugged. "It took a little while to adjust."

"Ahuh," Nate said, in that tone which meant he would deal with it later. Sophie was okay with that tone, because later meant after the con, and after the con meant Nate was drinking, and that meant Sophie had a thousand more valid comebacks than Nate ever had.

"How?" Astrid said, finally, her eyes scraping his face as if looking for an answer, one Nate wasn't willing to give.

"Let's just say IYS isn't the impeccable employer they once were and leave it at that for now, hmm? We're on a deadline and the clock is ticking." Nate stared at Astrid, impassive. Sophie was a master of body language, and Astrid's shock and surprise was clear all over her body and expression. Eventually something in Nate's face softened her, and Astrid shook herself.

"Okay, let's do this," Astrid said, still sounding somewhat bewildered.

"Okay." Nate leaned in closer to Astrid, and in a very quiet voice said, "We'll have time later. I'll explain when these two aren't around."

And even though Nate meant it in a friendly way, a way to bind Astrid to them with this new development, it stung Sophie to hear Nate refer to them as 'these two'. She pushed down that resentment, and focussed on the con. The sooner it was finished, the sooner they could go back to where they belonged—looking after Hardison—and the sooner this woman was out of their lives and back where she belonged too.

\- - - - 

Sophie was still silently seething as eleven o' clock rolled around and she was sat next to Parker's empty chair in a line up of what Bratt would think were new potential PAs. Parker was the first called to interview. Bratt hadn't been so enraged as Sophie would have thought, although from the way she had seen him shout at a couple of the other admin girls already, he had at least one visible streak of unpleasantness.

She pushed it aside, irritated at herself, and took a deep breath, settling into her character for the day. The door opened. Sophie raised her head, but didn't stare at him—some Marks saw an open glare as a challenge and were less inclined to welcome in a stranger into their life.

"It was a... pleasure," Bratt managed, a noticeable twang in his accent. His profile had said he was from North Dakota, but there was a hint of a Queens accent in there. Possibly his mother or father had a strong accent which had rubbed off on him.

Parker grinned at him, somewhat awkwardly. 

"Just fill in the forms as we discussed and I'll inform you by the end of the day if you're successful," Bratt said, in a tone which clearly indicated she was not. Sophie shared a brief smile with one of the candidates to her right. She should feel a little guilty these women thought they had a chance, but interview practice was always a good thing, and Sophie had other things to feel guilty about. "Miss..." Bratt looked down at the clipboard in his hand with the list of candidates on Nate had faxed over to the reprographics department, and delivered to Bratt's hand through a series of office messengers. "Brent?"

Sophie was already gracefully out of the seat even as he hesitated, and she caught his eyes and held them with her own as he lowered the clipboard. "Amelia," she said, in the best Queens accent she could manage. She'd spent a week in that part of New York a while ago, and she hadn't used the accent much. She had used it on one con in Israel. Nate had nearly caught her there. The accent came flooding back much more easily. "Please call me Amelia."

She swept him a devastating smile, and touched him on his elbow, exposing her wrists to him, the universal human symbol of  _I trust you_. Bratt smiled back at her. "Please come into my office."

Sophie inclined her head, and followed him. As she turned to close the door, she smiled through the gap at Parker, and let it shut.

When it closed, she turned and allowed herself a second to survey the office. A picture of Bratt and an elderly woman was prominent on his desk. Sophie matched fourteen identical facial landmarks between them—obviously related. Probably his mother. She also caught the flash of blue in his intray. Parker had slipped the magazine advertising Hardcorp into there flawlessly. Sophie was thankful they'd decided not to put the glossy picture of "Mr. Hardwick" as Hardison had wanted them to.

"So, Amelia. Please, take a seat." Bratt's eyes moved from Sophie's face to the curves she deliberately put on display.

"I think I will."

Bratt's expression as she sashayed across the floor and perched on the side of his desk was amusing, if nothing else. Sophie smiled at him. From a distance, he didn't look half bad—a sweep of dark hair, brown eyes, tanned skin—but close up his flaws were obvious. The sag of skin. The hint of grey at his roots betraying his dyed hair. His too-perfect teeth (obviously dentures.) Still, he had money, and the character Sophie was playing liked money too. "Miss Brent," Bratt started.

"Amelia, I insist." Sophie held her sugary sweet expression. "You're going to hire me, of course. The other girls out there are just secretaries. You can tell it by their flimsy wrists, their bad postures. Those girls aren't used to running around, catering to their boss's every..." Sophie's eyes trailed deliberately just for a second to where she assumed his crotch was, under the sag of material. Her eyes flickered back up to his. "Whim." She smiled, showing all teeth. "I know how this company works, and better, I know how your biggest rival operates. Hardcorp. I got them to where they are now, and if Hardwick's hands weren't quite so... wrinkled, if you get my drift... well, I probably still would have left, working for you, the biggest star of the sector, well, that's the dream, isn't it? And I've woken up, Mr. Bratt. I've woken up and I know I can make your dreams come true. With my able assistance and timely approach to things."

She leaned in closer, just the right distance to put her at the edge of his personal space.

"Miss Brent," Bratt started.

"Amelia," Sophie interrupted.

"I'm sorry, I haven't even heard of my... how did you put it? Biggest rival?" Bratt made a sound in his throat, half-laugh, half-breath.

Sophie pulled back, rearranging her face into a question. She turned her head, and pretended to be rummaging through his in tray, even though she knew exactly where the magazine was. He made a sound of surprise and displeasure, which halted as she yanked the magazine out, the HARDCORP logo emblazoned on the front, declaring it the hottest company since Brattcom and Whitcom combined.

Bratt's mouth went a little slack as he took it from her, his fingers ghosting the surface. "And you-" he started.

"I'm the one who got him where he is now. I'm the one with the contacts, the knowhow. And I'm leaving him to work for you." Sophie made sure Bratt's eyes were on hers.

"I- Yes, Miss. Brent. Yes, I think-"

Sophie grinned at the sudden sound of commotion outside. Everything had been timed perfectly, not even an earpiece was necessary. Nate said they distracted her—precise timing was better. Sophie didn't mind. She was good at making sure things happened when they should happen, and so apparently was Astrid - this commotion was right on time.

"Excuse me," Bratt said, rising to his feet. Sophie followed him, tailing him.

Outside, Astrid was being held back by a couple of security guards. She looked furious. Nate was right. She could play a part in a con quite nicely. 

"I'm just here to deliver an invitation," Astrid said, crossly, eyeballing each of the huge guards.

"Let her go," Bratt said. "It's not like she's harmful or anything."

Astrid wrestled herself free. She smoothed down her suit and held an envelope out in her right hand. Sophie smoothly intercepted it, pulling it open. Bratt raised his eyebrows at her. "It's an invitation. Mr. Hardwick of Hardcorp is throwing a party at 7pm tonight in his factory, and you and a guest are invited for drinks and canapés. Sounds delightful." Sophie leaned over and pulled the PDA slightly showing from Bratt's front jacket pocket out. He made a soft sound of surprised. Sophie tapped on it as if she was bored. "You've got a meeting at six with Stevenson Inc. but I'll reschedule it for you." She leaned in. "You'll want to check the opposition out, after all."

"Of course. Um. Please see to that for me immediately, Miss. Brent." Bratt coughed loudly. Sophie inclined her head obsequiously and disappeared into his office. She listened in to the con as she knelt down under his desk to where his computer was, just in case there was anything decent in his computer that could help send him down. She knocked her knee on something underneath there, something metallic, and she glanced down at it, annoyed, before pushing the USB pen into the back of his computer so they could pick up his information remotely. She cloned the PDA, found Stevenson Inc.'s number and quickly dialled it, keeping one ear open to hear everything going on outside.

"You're a piece of work, Mr. Bratt." Astrid's voice was strident, and there was a hint of an accent in her voice too, something Sophie couldn't quite make out. She'd figure it out later. It didn't matter at the moment. "I know you set me up. I can't prove it, but I know it. I'm going to enjoy watching Hardcorp grind your ass into dust."

"I'm sure that's not going to happen, Miss. Alexander. I hope you can get used to disappointment. It's been no trouble for you in the past, I know."

Bratt was a complete jerk. Sophie got through to Stevenson Inc. and perfunctorily cancelled the meeting, not even bothering to reschedule it. She typed in a time on the PDA anyway as she put the phone back in the cradle. If for some reason this con didn't work, Bratt would get pissed off at them not showing up, so it was a small win in the face of potential failure. Sophie tried to find as many as possible just in case. Nate didn't know. Well, he probably did, but he was nice enough not to say anything. It's not like he trusted her 100% either, or she'd know who the woman was they'd seen him with.

"Well. I'm afraid I'll probably see you tonight. And, even though you don't deserve it, I'll give you a warning. That girl, the tiny one, filling out the forms? I don't know what she's after, but you must have something expensive in your safe, because that's Parker."

Sophie pushed open the door, holding out Bratt's PDA. "Parker? The renowned uncatchable jewel thief Parker?" Sophie's eyes went wide. Bratt glanced from Astrid, to Sophie, to Parker, who looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

"Parker," Astrid said, adjusting her frosty stare to Parker's direction.

There was a blur of movement. Sophie didn't often get to see Parker's disappearing act, usually because it was a kind of blink-and-you-miss it gig, so Parker must have slowed down... fractionally. Enough for the security guards still menacingly framing the door to grab her.

Parker allowed them to turn her, stony-faced and scowling, and she glowered at Bratt.

"You here for my unbreakable safe, right?" Bratt's eyes were harsh. " Guys, put her back in my office. Amelia, help them restrain her. I trust it won't be a problem. And Alexander," Bratt raised his voice. "Get the hell off my property."

"Immediately," Astrid said, not looking at all impressed.

"I look forward to it," Sophie said in a low voice. Parker aimed a kick at her as the guards pushed her into the office. Sophie decided she probably deserved it.

Bratt came into the office a moment later, just in time for Sophie to slip the plastic restraints over Parker's wrist, locking her to the chair. He looked pleased, but instead of going for his chair, he leaned against the wall, against one of his bookcases. Sophie hadn't really noticed them, but as she straightened up and leaned as provocatively as she could manage against the back wall, she knew Parker had.  _What would have made Parker notice the bookcase?_  Sophie caught it the moment before Bratt revealed it—the hint of metal at the base. The bookcase moved.

Bratt swung it to the side in a perfect semi-circle, revealing a black shiny door behind it, a small keypad to one side. Sophie's stomach swooped and she forced herself to stay still. It was the safe.

"This is the pride and joy of my whole company," Bratt said. "The place I keep the secret of my blossoming success. I want to employ you, Parker. I will pay you $100,000 to try and open this safe."

"You want me to  _open_  your safe? Your safe that contains all your deepest, darkest secrets?" Parker sounded shocked. "I can do that."

Bratt laughed. "I don't think so. I'll pay you either way, though. But if you can't do it by 6.30pm, you have to accompany me to an event tonight. Just as a guest, just to help me scope out my rival's business address from a... professional's point of view, if you get what I mean."

Parker paused as if to think about it.

"Or I could call the cops and get you arrested," Bratt said.

Parker laughed.

" _He's not to know you let yourself be caught, Parker_ ," Nate's voice commanded. Sophie really had to fight not to jump, because she'd almost forgotten he was there. It always startled her, both when it came out of nowhere, and how much she liked having his voice so comfortingly close when she needed it. Once upon a time, Nate had talked to her as if he was already this close to her, as if he knew how her brain worked on every level. Now he didn't even have to use that massive brain of his to pick her apart. He just knew her that well now. Knew her too well.

Parker's face darkened automatically at his reminder. She listened to him too much, too trustingly. It worried Sophie a little, particularly with how she was raised; listening to Archie's every command. But every now and again, Parker would speak up for herself, sticking to her convictions, and it was enough to let the worries sleep for a while.

"So what will it be?"

Parker grinned at him. "I'll need some lock picks. And a spanner."

"Amelia, find out the kind she needs. Source them. Immediately. I want them in her hands by 1pm. You two..." Bratt moved closer to the security guards and lowered his voice. "Watch her like a hawk. See she doesn't talk to anyone. And do not let her escape. I've heard of this girl and she's the best. Be better, or be unemployed. Capiche?"

Bratt stepped back, his eyes ice-cool. Sophie swallowed. 

"And Amelia, dismiss the other candidates. You're hired." Bratt smiled at her, curling a hand around her hip, his fingers grazing her rear. Sophie thought of Nate's voice, calm in her ear, and it was enough—she smiled up at him through her eyelashes.

"Right away, sir," she purred. Bratt smiled, and crossed over to his chair, and started to quiz Parker on her desired equipment. Sophie took notes, and tried not to shudder at his smug expression. He was ruthless, and obviously used to dirty tactics, because who gave plastic restraints to their security? Who found out they had the best thief in the world and hired them immediately?  _The kind of idiot that hires Grifters like you without noticing they're being played_ , Sophie thought fiercely, hurrying off once she had the right information to get Parker's tools.

" _We'll bring him down, Sophie_ ," Nate's voice said, comfortingly. Yet again, he was right in her ear, right on the track of thoughts that Sophie was travelling, and she should have felt like he was closer than ever. But she remembered the strange woman's hands in his hair, and the way he had talked to Astrid, and the awkward tension between them ever since San Lorenzo, and she felt further away from him than ever.

\- - - -

Sophie, of course, was the one left cramped in the van come the party at 7pm. Parker actually tried her best to crack the HB safe. Sophie was impressed at the glimpses she caught of the thief in action. She'd often suspected Parker had learned an ounce of kindness and had been suppressing her skills in front of them so as not to frighten them and her suspicions seemed close to the mark. Parker was amazing. Her fingers moved so fast Sophie could barely see them, and still, it wasn't enough. Bratt just looked more and more pleased the more Sophie saw him, as she hurried in and out doing mindless errands one after another.  _No wonder his last PA skimmed money from the company. I hope she spends it on a plane ticket to somewhere a million miles away from him_.

Hardison came out of surgery about three hours before and was asleep. Eliot had to take his place in the con inside the party, leaving Hardison unattended. Ideally Sophie could have played her part at his bedside, as she was basically just monitoring comms and the security cameras. It wasn't her favorite kind of job, but Astrid was in the part she might have normally played, and Sophie was trying her best not to be jealous. Because jealousy, as much as Sophie hated to admit it, jealousy was definitely one of her less flattering impulses at the moment.

Plus, Hardison was right. Lucille—even this version of her—was pretty rank.

Still, at least she got to play Nate's role, sitting and watching the action and getting to be the one that suggested things from on high. The rush of power made up some for the bad smell and slightly stale cereal which was somehow always the only snack available in any of their vans.

Bratt wasn't there yet. He seemed like the kind to make an entrance, and Parker's interview outfit probably wasn't up to his sensibilities. She hoped there hadn't been any casualties when Bratt insisted on taking her shopping for a dress. Parker got pretty violent when pushed into anything that wasn't trousers, which was why it was pretty much just an annual occurrence.

Sophie cycled through the cameras. The sculpture Hardison had made was prominent in the store room Nate had made into a party room for the night. There were still cardboard boxes in there, but hidden by some gauzy material, and there were enough security cameras for Sophie to see everything that was going on.

Eliot was leaning against a wall, looking unhappy, but Sophie didn't reckon anything was amiss from the con—it was his default con expression.

Sophie watched as Astrid crossed the floor to where Nate was leaning against a wall, waiting for Bratt to show up.

"So you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?" 

Sophie leaned in closer, straining at the screen, wishing she could read more of Nate's expression. His tight voice was all the clue she could really get to his emotions.

"I don't know what you mean," Nate replied. His tone was off kilter, wavering. Sophie wanted to be there, to hold his hand. She couldn't do it physically, but she could do it vocally. After all, wasn't she in his head as much as he was in hers? Or maybe it was wishful thinking. Either way, she wasn't helpless, as long as she was connected to him and had her voice.

" _I'm right here, Nate. You're not alone_."

He didn't reply to her. Sophie was almost surprised, but Nate seemed reluctant to let Astrid know about the earpieces. Then again, he did like to have a back up plan or two in place. Or thirty, if he could manage it.

"Let's see if I can understand this," Astrid said. Sophie could see her lean against the wall, mimicking Nate's position exactly. Sophie froze a little at that—mirroring was a Grifter thing, to gain someone's trust... but then again, she was emotionally involved in this, and was probably reading too much into things. Hardison had triple checked her online. "Your pupils aren't dilated."

"Should they be?" Nate replied.

"You're popping Tylenol like it's going out of fashion." Astrid said. Her voice was fainted, not so close to the earpiece, but it was clear enough to make Sophie think over Nate's actions over the last few days. She'd only seen him take a headache tablet once, but Nate was practiced in hiding alcohol by now. He could easily hide swallowing a tablet every so often. "Which means you've got a persistent headache. But your eyes are proof you haven't been drinking heavily today. You're not sweating, either."

Nate just stared at her. It was his silent  _go on_. Sophie found herself opening her mouth to tell Astrid, then she remembered she couldn't as Astrid wouldn't hear her, and then she remembered Astrid had known Nate for longer than she ever had. She had more of a claim over him than she did, and she would know Nate's verbal clues—or lack of.

"You quit IYS to lead a merry band of crooks, which means hell must have happened on Earth, you're not wearing your wedding band, you rarely smile unless it's at Parker—you're seeing her as some sort of second chance, which means something happened to Sam." Astrid's voice hitched at that. She was good. Really good. "So, you started drinking, lost your job, lost Maggie, found a new direction in life... and now you're starting to grieve properly, you want to be around for these people. But it's been a long time in the trenches. Those DTs are pretty bad."

 _Wait, what? What did she say?_  Sophie stared at the screen, trying to gauge Nate's reaction. DTs? Was Astrid right? She watched as Nate took hold of his left hand with his right, eyeing it in exaggerated scorn for a moment, as if blaming it for betraying him. He looked away from her, and into some imaginary point in the distance. "I raised a monster when I trained you."

His voice was calm, casual, and then his eyes flickered up to the security camera just for a second, like he was staring at Sophie. He knew she was watching. Sophie swallowed as silently as she could.

Earlier, when she came upon him in the apartment, worrying, she had thought his trembling was over indulgence. Could he really be working to overcome something he had been so careful not to undo for the last five years?

"Leukaemia," Nate said, after he looked away from defiantly staring at Sophie through the security camera. "Stage 4 leukaemia. Blackpoole refused to pay for Sam's treatment. I couldn't-"  _Work for IYS any more_  is how the sentence should end, but  _finish his sentence_  works just as well. Astrid's intake of breath is loud enough to be picked up by Nate's earpiece. 

"So you want to screw them as much as I do," Astrid said, staring into the party at the people mingling around. Sophie was impressed at how many people were milling around. Nate was  _really_  good at this behind-the-scenes stuff. She wondered irreverently if he even needed a crew, and her stomach protested unhappily at the thought. Nate needed them, whether he knew it or not. If not for a con, for his life and his sanity.

"Already got Blackpoole in jail," Nate said, unable to halt the fierce grin that always accompanied those words.

Astrid mirrored his grin. "Your team seem very... dedicated."

"They're the best," Nate said, latching onto the change in topic gratefully. He flickered another glance up to the camera and Sophie smiled, pleased. And then she had to definitely put her mind back onto the con because of a certain pleasing movement at the bottom of her screen.

" _Nate, Bratt's here. Eliot, get ready to play_."

"It's not playing if there's no violence," Eliot grumbled, but he moved further off to one side, loitering around the canapé table.

Sophie leaned forwards on her elbows to watch. This view of a con was actually pretty good; she made a mental note to swap with Hardison more often. She hissed under her breath—perhaps in better circumstances.

Parker looked amazing. Sophie had to suppress a gag as she caught a flash of red at Parker's heels. Bratt bought her Loubotins? Urgh, she totally should have specialised in thievery instead of grifting. It was a good thing Hardison couldn't see her, because he'd probably rip his stitches.

Nate was the first to go talk to Bratt. He was expansive, using that ridiculous accent he had dredged up on several jobs, just on the right edge of eccentric. He played the role well, baiting Bratt to the right amount, bragging about how his company was going to leave Brattcom in the dust, and bragging about the statue before backing up Sophie's cover story with Bratt and pretending to be hands on with Parker.

" _No, Parker, you can't stab Nate if he does touch you._ "

Nate laughed, and thankfully Bratt mistook it for something he'd said. Behind Bratt's back, Parker made a stabbing motion with her hands and glared at one of the cameras.

Astrid pushed in next after Nate sauntered away. Sophie couldn't hear what she said, but Bratt looked suitably enraged. And then, as Bratt seemed to be going with the philosophy he could damage Nate's company by eating everything in sight, Eliot and Nate staged a rather loud argument about how the statue Hardison had made was worth millions and wasn't even fully insured yet, and Nate complained about how if something happened,  _he'd_  be footing the bill to his shareholders, and Bratt yanked Parker in close—probably unaware at how close to death he was treading by doing so—and promised her $500,000 if she stole the statue for him, and that was it.

The con was on.

\- - - - -

Sophie was waiting for Bratt the next morning at 7am with a cup of coffee and her hand on the button to dial the police. He took the coffee without thanks. Sophie checked for the sign Parker had left them, and pressed it.

The police were there in minutes.

"Mr. Bratt," one of them declared as soon as he was finished spluttering, "you've been accused of kidnapping and theft. Can I please ask you to open your safe?"

"Haven't you got a warrant?"

Sophie had to really fight to suppress the grin she wanted to make. The panicked tone in his voice was one of the best things she'd heard all week.

"If you're innocent," the detective in charge replied, "then we won't need one, will we?"

"It's good practice, show's your open and honest," Sophie said helpfully from the sidelines. "Hardwick's nowhere near as transparent and it's going to ruin him someday."

Bratt edged her a speculative look, shrugged, and pulled open the bookcase to open his safe. Sophie kept track of the process, but it seemed complicated. A number code, a fingerprint scanner, his voice, a retinal scan, and a combination pressure sequence, followed by another number code and a scan of his phone.

The door slid open to an empty room. One of the cops walked in and looked around. Sophie glanced in. She could tell there was a hidden compartment in the safe, and the cop didn't have a clue. She rolled her eyes. Sometimes civilians made it so easy for a dishonest Grifter to make a living.

"See?" Bratt said. "It's perfectly empty."

The detective coughed. "Not that safe."

Bratt frowned at him. "Excuse me?"

Sophie hid a smile. Bratt wouldn't have been so confused, if he had perhaps come back after opening the safe for Parker and the driver (Eliot, of course, with his face covered by a cap and his hair tied back) to heft the statue into his safe and behind the hidden compartment where several other paintings lay. Along with Whitman's $15 million Cezanne. Originally the plan had been just to break down the hidden wall in the safe, but when Sophie knelt down to push the USB in, the thing she knocked her knee against was another safe, probably Bratt's old one before his new unbreakable safe was created. This way was more poetic, a much better payoff, and let Parker have more fun with both safes.

Two of the cops moved his desk to one side, and one of them yanked open the trapdoor covering the safe. The safe below wasn't even locked, it was padlocked. Bratt stared, confused, as the cops brought in lock cutters (it was convenient that the call Nate had placed had indicated they might be required) and opened it. Down in the low room concealed beneath his desk was the statue, the painting, all the other objects...

...and Astrid, bound and gagged.

"But this is impossible," Bratt said, "I never, I couldn't-"

"He did it," Astrid yelled dramatically as soon as she was free. "He bound me up and gagged me and locked me in."

Sticking Astrid down in there for five hours can't have been too pleasant, Sophie mused, but the food and duvet they left her in was hidden inside the statue. It had been easy enough last night to leave Parker in the building. Bratt stormed off, pleased as punch, not noticing that he and Eliot had gone out with Parker, and somehow come back with a blonde-wigged Sophie. The building had locked down behind Bratt, leaving Parker inside the building, and Astrid in the safe climbing out of the statue. 

The cops demanded to know how Astrid tied herself up, as it was impossible to tie yourself up the way Astrid was tied; they were unaware that Parker was also hidden inside the statue. As Bratt upstairs made a scene, Parker climbed out in a police uniform, and assisted the other cops in helping Astrid climb out of the hole. Parker yelled, in a gruff accent, about how the painting looked  _remarkably_  like Whitman's stolen Cezanne, and as soon as she was near the door, she and Sophie slipped away.

Astrid's statement wouldn't be enough to condemn Bratt to prison as there would not be enough proof he had kidnapped her, but the tabloids somehow miraculously turned up at the scene (Nate was very good at making calls) and the rumors were already spreading far and wide that Bratt had kidnapped someone. Enough people had been at the party to confirm they had seen Bratt and Astrid arguing. His reputation was ruined, and to top things off, his fingerprints were all over the stolen pieces of art.

And best of all, as Astrid joined them at Hardison's bedside, was that IYS had issued her an apology and were taking her back.

"Screw them," Astrid said, sharing a grin with Nate as she rubbed her wrists. She edged a look at Parker. "Did you really have to tie my wrists so hard?"

"I really did," Parker assured her.

"I can't believe this, thank you so much." Astrid perched on the edge of the bed, ruffling Hardison's hair. He made a whimpering sound and Parker bared her teeth at Astrid. Astrid quickly got to her feet. She touched Nate's elbow, guiding him away from them. Sophie tried not to let the jealousy she was feeling show on her face too badly. Eliot put a hand on her shoulder companionably, soothing her. 

"I don't know how to repay you," Astrid gushed.

"Go live your life?" Nate said, shrugging. "And we'll be here if you need us."

"You could come with me," Astrid said, quickly, low and urgent. She put her hands on Nate's, and Nate looked at her, almost wistfully. Sophie turned away, feeling like she was intruding too much. "This isn't your life, Nate. You're an honest man, not a criminal."

"They're my family now, Astrid." Nate's voice was firm. Sophie was so trained on him that she could hear him pull her hands from his. "Go home and be safe."

Astrid made a sound in the back of her throat that seemed so suddenly raw, desperate, and Sophie frowned at it. It was so out of place. Like she was about to explode because Nate wouldn't come with her. "You came with me once."

"Astrid-" Nate turned and glanced over at them, and then took Astrid by the elbow, shepherding her out of the room. Sophie watched them go, and watched him talking with her through the small window in the hospital door. He looked tense, but then again they were in a hospital, which twisted things when it came to Nate.

He came back in eventually, looking older, and more tired than she'd ever seen him.

"You okay?"

Nate nodded, looking like he was a million miles away. "She just... sometimes people can't let go of the past. Can't move on."

"And are you? Tempted to move on?" Sophie's question was probably too loud. It had panic in it, and desperation, and was much rawer than Astrid's odd departure. The others turned, questions on their faces.

"Only moving I'm doing is getting Hardison home," Nate said after the longest moment, and he smiled, and Sophie released the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. It felt like she'd been holding it for a very long time.

\- - - - 

The doctors couldn't discharge Hardison soon enough once Eliot went down and stared at them. They were glad to have Hardison back and were probably too effusive to show him, rigging a bed up in front of the monitors and using extension cables to move Nate's giant fridge with Hardison's lifeline of Orange Squeeze within hands reach.

Sophie leaned back and watched Eliot and Parker bicker with Hardison about who had the most scars, and Hardison was trying to tell Parker it didn't count as breaking  _in_  to a safe if you put someone inside it and coached them on how to break  _out_  (he was losing) and she tried very hard not to think about how close they came to losing Hardison.

Nate joined her, obviously enjoying the view as much as she did.

Sophie let the moment steep for a while, before leaning in close to him. "I guess the DTs mean the woman we saw you with is your sponsor," Sophie said. She could have hidden that they'd spied on him, of course, but it wasn't the time for secrets. She wanted things open, things worked out, and that meant she had to be the one to open up first.

"You were spying on me," Nate said, almost incredulously, although he had to know the way his team reacted to things by now. He looked at her sideways, and stretched out his hand; it was only vaguely trembling.

"I was jealous; of course I spied on you."

Nate's eyes opened just a little too-wide. He masked it quickly, but Sophie smiled a little. His surprise at her quiet announcement was enough for the moment. It wasn't a declaration of feeling, or a moment of intimacy, but it was enough for her. 

It was a step towards the right path, and that was a step closer than any of them had been for a long while.

"I... thought about what you said," Nate said, almost like it was uncomfortable to say. 

Sophie thrilled silently, not wanting to push him, so she opted for a gentle opener. "And?"

Okay, so it was a little less than gentle. He could ignore her if he wanted, though.

He didn't. 

"I don't like what anyone sees when they look at me," Nate said. "But perhaps a living body is better than glowering unhappily at a corpse."

"I like that option much better," Sophie informed him, turning her face to his. He tipped his face lower, and smiled at her, uneven but honest, and she swallowed, her eyes automatically going to his. His breath, not a hint of alcohol in it, was warm on her face, and Sophie found herself swallowing visibly before she could stop. She remembered their kiss on the Maltese Falcon. She remembered the addictive slide of his hot skin against her body in San Lorenzo, how they moved together, how it seemed like they'd been made to fit against each other, around each other- Her cheeks heated, and he smiled slowly, as if he knew what she was thinking.

The bastard probably did. Irritation clambered in to join with the heady faint arousal curling around the base of her spine, because that was how she'd always felt about Nate. Pissed off to the hilt that he knew her, knew every and any reaction she would make. But completely, absolutely, wholly addicted to him.

And if his trembling fingers lacing with hers, suffusing her with heat, were any possible indication, he felt the same way about her. He leaned in closer. "Is this okay?" he whispered.

 _Yes,_  Sophie wanted to say,  _yes, times a million, infinity, just get on with it already, can't you feel how much I need you?_  but as usual, the timing was all wrong.

"Guys, guys, I need y'all here to look at this." Hardison's voice broke through the atmosphere between them, and Sophie and Nate lurched at the same time, moving their heads in the direction of the sound. Nate moved first, but he didn't let go of Sophie's hand. She thought for a moment he had forgotten, but he glanced down at her hand for a moment, and his cheeks colored just a tiny bit, and Sophie really had to fight the grin as he let her pull her to the monitors. "I've been tracking various forms of communications, movement of strange money, the like. I automatically have our clients on the list, just as a routine thing, just in case any of them switch on us."

"And?" Nate said, his voice harsh.

"Astrid suddenly had $10 million moved into her account," Hardison said.

Sophie felt Nate go cold. His fingers stiffened around hers, but he didn't remove his hand. "An insurance payment?"

"It came from within..." Hardison's expression creased. "And it's gone already. Shifted to a- the numbers are scrambled, this would take even me a couple of hours on full speed and I'm not on full speed. I'll see if I can get a lock on its source country-" His voice dropped a clean octave as his findings appeared on screen.

"San Lorenzo," Sophie realized, the name coming out stilted, like her body had forgotten how to process oxygen. She remembered a handful of things about Astrid, all at once. Like how Astrid had mentioned Nate a ridiculous amount of times before she was introduced to him again, as if she was obsessed with him. Like that accent she couldn't quite identify, for one, that hint of a voice they had all heard before. 

Eliot got to his feet, eyes slitting automatically, hands clenching into fists. "Moreau," he ground out.

Astrid had a hint of Michael Vittori's accent. Buried down deep. If she had spent a long time in San Lorenzo, and had links... Sophie froze as Nate bristled by her side. If Moreau was out, he would want one thing: revenge. Against them. It seemed her father was right, that day long ago, as her mother wilted in the heat, denied shelter from the unforgiving sun.

Old sins did cast long shadows.

—-

"Fifteen years. I loved that man for fifteen years and he couldn't spare me a glance. And when he did cheat on his wife, it was figuratively. He gave his 'heart' away. To a  _Grifter_. A  _common criminal_." Astrid's voice was unsteady, rising in pitch. 

Moreau let it all wash over him. He'd returned to her the child he'd kidnapped and paid her handsomely too for the pleasure. In return, this Astrid woman had used all her connections, Interpol, IYS, to get him moved by some ex-SAS guys and get him shifted just one country over where extradition laws where alive and thriving. The dirty tactics she had learned from a man named Sterling were key, that and the fact that her rare misdeeds had all been paper based, and Ford's team did all their security checking online. She also gave him in depth knowledge of Ford and his team, and even better, exact knowledge of where Ford's weaknesses lay.

She could rant for hours if she liked. He was free. It was all music to Moreau's ears, because old sins cast long shadows, and Moreau was not the forgiving kind. He remembered, and he waited. 

And now the time for waiting was over.

—-


End file.
